Life Happens

Put a cup of coffee in that guy's hand and bundle him up in a winter coat and you have a visual of me, early Tuesday morning.

I got to work early, parked in the garage and decided to go pick up a breakfast burrito and a latté.  The coffee shop is across the street and around the corner from the office.  On my way back, even though there wasn't much traffic, I waited for the pedestrian signal to turn to WALK.  It didn't matter ... a young woman came zipping around the corner so fast that I didn't see her until just before her fender crashed into me. 

A man driving on the other side of the street stopped and helped me get up off the pavement–I was hurting so much, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to move.  I watched the driver who hit me start to leave the scene, then after the witness stopped to help me, decided to stop ... and plead with me not to call the police.  She said she was illegally in the country ... though later, I realized that probably isn't true, since she works for a large Santa Fe business. There's no doubt that she turned her big puppy dog eyes on the Santa Fe policeman who made the report and gave her a ticket for nothing more than something like, "distracted driving." 

As fate would happen, she works in the same office building as I do–for the company that manages the building.  I was too dazed and in pain to recognize her at first, but I see her every day. At work she is ALWAYS talking on her cell-phone. I really do mean ALWAYS.  When she is working (she cleans the public areas), she is ALWAYS loudly talking and laughing on her phone.  When she is supposed to be working, she is often sitting on the bench in the elevator lobby, still ALWAYS talking and laughing to someone on her cell phone–loud enough that you can hear her on the other side of the wall, behind closed doors. 

As the story of my accident spread through the office, I found she has had several near misses with others (in their cars) ... and she was ALWAYS ON HER CELLPHONE.  Even if I didn't see her face before she sent me flying, I have no doubt that it wasn't the sun in her eyes as she claimed, but that SHE WAS ON HER CELLPHONE when she didn't stop and turned on red and hit me.

I was not-exactly treated by EMTs on the scene--they said something submissive, like "if you have broken ribs, there's nothing that you can do about them, " stuck a piece of gauze on my now skinless knee (without even cleaning it!) and sent me on my way.  I wanted to believe they were right and I was only feeling muscle soreness, but my ribs are so tender now that I can feel every breath and I live in fear of a cough or a sneeze.  

Getting into and out of bed, a chair or the car is an excruciating experience ... I walk at a snail's pace, because it is as fast as I can go now. Everything from the neck down hurts ... and the cell-phone twit continues to happily laugh and talk on her cell phone, completely unaffected by the havoc she's caused in my life. 

Today I looked at the blocks on my design wall and realized that I cannot raise my arm high enough to take down the blocks in the top two rows, even if I thought I could sit down and sew them together.  On Monday, I brought home a quilt that has been long-arm quilted, but I haven't done anything with it, because I can't even pick it up and carry it into the studio.   I made some sample blocks for the December Block Lotto last weekend–the sneak peek should go out on Sunday–but I don't know if I can sit at the desk long enough to put together the block directions.   I had plans to go big with holiday decorations this year, but it seems unlikely that I will be able to make that happen. 

I am glad to be alive, but so frustrated by all the pain and all the limitations ... and the knowledge that the older I am the longer it takes to recover from any injury.